Meta made an AI pet. For kids.

Matt Navarra

Hello, geeks!

What a week to be Mark Zuckerberg.

His own shareholders are suing him. Publishers kicked up such a fuss about Meta scraping their sites that it had to hit pause.

And Adam Mosseri, who spent years telling us longform video wasn’t a priority, just launched 90-minute horizontal videos on Instagram.

Sideways. On your phone. For an hour and a half.

Nothing says “we’re not copying YouTube” quite like copying YouTube.

Reddit, meanwhile, is getting a ‘For You’ feed. Because the world was clearly running short of those.

Elon promised Grok would make a full-length AI movie of The Odyssey this year. We got seven minutes. Of slop.

To be fair, delivering anything in the same year he promised it is a personal best for Elon.

And X has added a giant hand pointing at its Promote button. Subtle. Really subtle.

Coming up in this week’s Geekout…

• 📺️ Instagram now does 90-minute videos. Watch out, YouTube

• 😡 Meta shareholders are suing Zuck. Even they’ve had enough

• 👀 Reddit is getting a ‘For You’ feed. Wonder where they got that idea

• ⏪️ Meta just hit pause on scraping publishers. Funny what a backlash does

• 🛂 Ofcom wants UK teens to prove their age. ID at the ready

• 🐧 Meta made an AI pet for kids. What could go wrong?

But before we get into it...

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🔥 TOP STORY: Instagram declares war on YouTube with horizontal ‘Features’ up to 90 minutes long

2. Meta shareholders are suing Zuckerberg to block his billionaire-tax share plan [REVOLTING]

3. Reddit is adding a ‘For You’ feed of algorithm-picked posts and communities, next to a new Following feed [COPYING]

4. Meta delays controversial website-scraping terms after publisher backlash, promises “full consultation” [BACKPEDALLING]

5. Ofcom sets out age check plans for the UK’s teen social media ban [ID-CHECKING]

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Instagram goes long. Can it out-YouTube YouTube?

Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal videos in the US and Brazil. It’s a straight swing at YouTube. Problem is, there’s no ad revenue share, so creators have zero reason to jump ship. Yet…..

Looking back to its launch in 2010, it’s hard to believe what Instagram has become.

What started as a simple but compelling place to make relatively low-res smartphone photos look better with a filter has become a media behemoth: one that now wants to host 90-minute-long video epics.

The move makes sense if you’re Adam Mosseri. You’ve got to keep users locked into Instagram. YouTube has gone short with Shorts, so you’ve got to go long.

Mosseri says the plan is to make shortform and longform video “symbiotic.” The Verge gives the example of podcasts or comedy specials that can be both long videos and broken up into shorter ones.

Features, as the long videos are called, is only a limited test right now in the US and Brazil, but you can expect Meta to go big on it fast if it’s a hit.

The launch of Features caused a minor storm when it emerged that Instagram wouldn’t be doing an ad revenue share deal with creators. Why should they move away from YouTube if they can’t make money?

Mosseri explained it’s because Instagram’s existing, small revenue-sharing programme makes a loss overall. They must surely be doing it wrong if that’s the case!

Either way, it emerged that Instagram is providing some financial incentives to longform creators to adopt Features.

Selected YouTubers have reportedly received $50K–$500K offers to post videos on Features. The deals aren't exclusive; Instagram simply asks for same-day posting alongside YouTube.

Meta has confirmed it is paying some creators directly but won't disclose individual deal terms.

This is fine to kickstart Features, but it won’t be sustainable. If he wants longform creators to see Instagram as equal to YouTube, Adam Mosseri is going to have to figure out how to make payouts profitable.

Time to break out the spreadsheets, Adam!

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